Today I saw an interesting interview on YouTube that happened recently (like last night). It has been causing me much inner reflection and has started a fire inside my bones for my beliefs. I love it when this happens. I'll explain why below.

Brandon Flowers was being featured on a Norwegian talk show. He appeared thinking that he would just be representing his band and talking about his music (a sort of announcement before a release of a new album on iTunes). But the show then announced that they had invited another guest: Richard Dawkins. I will not even link to him because I do not support him in any way, not even with link juice!

He is one of the world's leading (if you can say that) atheists. He is like a mix of Sigmund Freud, Charles Darwin and Korihor. He is an outright, ruthless, godless man. I had to study his hypotheses and theories for a class at BYU once. The assignment was an in-depth critique of his writings and it nearly made me sick. He has a completely different world view. He is an evolutionary biologist who believes that science has the answer and explanation to everything. He says that there is no room for God and that people who believe in God are simply ignorant to greater knowledge. That they haven't studied the topic (in his case - biology) thoroughly enough and that if they had gone into enough depth, they would clearly see that there was no divine designer. I have to control myself or I will really go off on how absolutely absurd this is. So I won't. All I will say is that Dawkins will be among those whose knees will bend and whose tongues will confess that Jesus is the Christ and the Creator of all. 

Before I changed my major to to psychology, my major was in the sciences. I absolutely love science. It fascinates me. I love the intricacy of micro-nature and the enormity of macro-nature. If I had three lives, I would love to become a well-known scientist who DOES believe in God. That is one of my dreams along with going to the olympics and being a librarian. When I was studying the "hard-sciences" I often wondered why there were so many hard-science empiricists who forgot to believe in God or who had not included Him in their equations. So I started to make a list of those who had been hard-scientists who DID have a firm belief in God (or in some sort of greater providential force). Here are just a few from my faith:

• John A. Widtsoe - Graduated from Harvard in the sciences with the highest honors and went on to become an apostle. Wrote an amazing book on his religious devotion even as a scientist called Evidences and Reconciliations.  
• James E. Talmage - Studied and received degrees and advanced degrees in the sciences at Johns Hopkins and became an apostle. Um, he also wrote Jesus the Christ. 
• Henry Eyring - A remarkable chemist whose work on transition state theory in chemical reactions (activation energy - which I think is fascinating) got him the National Medal of Science in 1966, the Wolf Prize in Chemistry and ten other prestigious prizes or medals. Other scientists did further work based on his research who went on to receive the Nobel Prize (there is a controversy around why he was not given the award). He is the father of Henry Bennion Eyring (member of the first presidency today). In addition to the hundreds of scientific publications he authored, he wrote some texts about his faith as a scientist. 
• Richard G. Scott - Nuclear physicist who was given the special assignment to the team of scientists who created the first nuclear powered submarine in history - the US Nautilus. Has served his whole life in the Church and is now one of the 12 apostles.
• Russell M. Nelson - Another of the 12 apostles of the Church who is a world-renown cardiovascular surgeon, whose work on the artificial heart is very notable. 

There are many, many more disciple-scholars (Neal A. Maxwell's term) who are bilingual in the things of science and the Spirit - or in Dallin H. Oaks' words "reason and revelation". 

Though I always hesitate to become a Mormon apologist, there is a part of me that wants to go up against people like Dawkins with intellectual arguments for the truth that include science. Though this may be more like when my companions would try to argue with Evangelicals and Jehovah's Witnesses in Spanish, using the Bible. No one got anything out of it other than frustration. haha. 

It is good for us to have a bit of opposition to our beliefs. It just makes us stronger. I'm writing a book right now for returned missionaries. Here is a teaser from the second chapter: When our beliefs are questioned, they either fail or they are strengthened. And more often they are strengthened because we recheck what we believe and we check it with God (or at least we should). Then we come back having our knowledge of the truth that we have strengthened. That is why returned missionaries often have such strong conviction of the truth. They are constantly opposed. Hugh Nibley puts it this way:

"Long experience has shown that the Latter-day Saints only become aware of the nature and genius of their modern scriptures when relentless and obstreperous criticism from the outside, forces them to take a closer look at what they have, with the usual result of putting those scriptures in a much stronger position than they were before."
 (Hugh Nibley. An Approach to the Book of Abraham, p. 40).

Like Brandon Flowers, you, and every other common and famous Mormon out there will likely be put on the spot sometime in the near future. It probably won't be up against someone like Richard Dawkins, but you will have a Korihor to face. And you will have to be ready. Are you ready? I hope so. Remember the faith of scientists, and "be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you." (1 Peter 3:15)

Though I was alone in my kitchen, I gave Brandon a standing ovation as I watched him on my phone while eating lunch. Way to be the Alma, and the rockstar, literally. I'll go download your songs now on iTunes.

C.S. Lewis wrote a book with this title. Many thought that it was because he married so late in life and his wife's name was Joy. It was actually not about that at all, but about his journey from atheism, to theism, to Christianity. It blows my mind that this man actually was an atheist because much of my intellectual appeal to Christianity has come from this man's pen. The big reason for his switch is because he found joy where he wasn't expecting it. It surprised him.

And the joy he found was a deep longing for something he did not have, but that he knew existed. He says that he caught glimpses of it through out his life, but never quite caught hold of the real thing. But after much exploration and a bit of help from J.R.R. Tolkien (among others), there was a moment in his life where he just all-of-the-sudden knew. And he was surprised by the joy it brought. He uses a German word to describe it: sehnsucht.

"Sehnsucht" is one of those words that just doesn't have a direct translation into English. Whatever you use to describe its definition, you have to pad that with other words and descriptions so that it makes sense. It basically means "longing", "yearning" or "nostalgia". I like this description (from wikipedia): 

"It is sometimes felt as a longing for a far-off country, but not a particular earthly land which we can identify. Furthermore there is something in the experience which suggests this far-off country is very familiar and indicative of what we might otherwise call 'home'". This "home" feeling is something that I think we all have experienced. And like Mr. Lewis, I also believe we all long for true, lasting joy. I sure do.  
   
But joy is such an interesting thing. One of my core beliefs is that one of the purposes of life is to have joy. Adam fell that man may be, and men are that they might have joy. That's why we are here. To experience true joy. But I believe that joy isn't as easy as getting a new pair of shoes, or getting a free Jamba Juice - though I love when that happens. It comes with a price. And the price is usually some sort of pain. 

If we ask God to bless us with joy, He will, but it will likely be after our heart has been in some way wrenched. And when we arrive at that moment when we feel such a heavenly sensation, it will be much more rich because of what we went through. Joy is much more genuine and lasting because it does take a while to get there. And no one else can understand it the way we do once we arrive at joy. It's hard to explain. Trying to explain joy is a bit like trying to describe a life-changing experience. Like after I came home from a two year mission in Chile or after my time in the Holy Land. I often found mere acquaintances asking "So how was your mission?" or "How was Jerusalem?" They were well meaning, but it was impossible to really explain how those life-changing experiences were.

As a teacher at the MTC I used a visual of a rosebush to explain the mission. The mission is like a rosebush. Before you get to it, you look at it, and you are amazed at how beautiful it is from a distance. You get closer and it just gets even more beautiful. Then you are surprised when you begin to walk through the rosebush. You realize that there are thorns EVERYWHERE and you wonder why you entered the rosebush in the first place! You look down and see that you are bleeding and torn all over your body. It hurts, but something inside you tells you to keep walking. So you do. You finally see the other side of the rosebush and before you know it, you are on the outside looking back. The blood stops, the wounds heal and you once again see the rosebush from a distance. And it looks even more beautiful than it did before you entered. And even though it was one of the most painful and bloody experience you have been through, you almost feel a nostalgia for that beautiful place. To me this is joy. It can't be experienced without that unique painful nostalgia.   

If we want true joy, our whole life we will be entering and exiting these rosebushes. Man is that he might walk through the rosebush. Thankfully, there is someone who walks through the bush with us who has gone through the rosebush to trump all rosebushes. "I have trodden the winepress alone" He said (Isaiah 63:3). "Which suffering caused myself even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit--and would that I might not drink the bitter cup and partake--" This suffering was real and He overcame. And after His great rosebush He actually said: "my joy is full" (3 Ne 17:20) - this makes more sense that his joy would be FULL after having suffered for all mankind. His rosebush trumped all rosebushes and His joy therefore is matchless. 

I am grateful for the true joy I have experienced in my life, especially recently. And for the chance to walk through the rosebushes of life. And I am grateful for the one who can fix me every time I walk through another one.    

"In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)